|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Monday canvassed the need for private sector organizations to adhere strictly to the minimum wage structure in the country.
This is just as the Vice President frowned at non payment of salaries by owners of media houses
The Vice President who was declaring open, a Seminar titled: “Journalists and Retirement Plan,” organized by State House Press Corps (SHPC) in Abuja on Monday, also viewed salaries paid in Nigeria as generally poor.
The Vice President listed several other reasons why Journalists are poorly paid to include cheating by their employers, lack of proper regulatory mechanisms in the profession and low productivity.
“There are a few reasons in my view why remuneration is poor in the media houses, especially those who are formally engaged”
“The first is that it is just simply cheating. There are owners of media that are just cheats. They just want to get something for nothing and that is not uncommon,.It is a general malaise, it is not necessarily restricted to the media”
“The private sector does not respect the minimum wage. Even if a minimum wage is set nationally it is not necessarily respected by the private sector and this is something that should be factored in to the status of a company and whether a company is even complying with the requirement
“Not just the minimum wage of the lowest paid person, but minimum wages across the board especially so that there is certain amount of regulation of how people are paid”
Osinbajo who expressed concern over the poor renumeration in Media Houses, urged Journalists to embrace creativity to make themselves relevant to both their organizations and the society
The Vice President called on professional organizations to robustly engage media owners which do not pay their workers, adding: “we ought to have a debate on what kind of pay can stop you from accepting brown envelope or whatever.”
He also called on employers to comply with the contributory pension scheme, even as he urged journalists to “seek self improvement and be a sector expert” as a way of preparing themselves for the future.
“But more importantly for me was the fact that you are just on your own. Journalism as a profession is so wide open
“Entry into journalism is not vigorously enforced. Most professions are able to pay better because there is entry requirements that are rigorously enforced, Perhaps not the case in journalism and for good reason.
“There are those who are formally trained as journalists but the profession will admit anybody at all even if you are not formally trained as a journalist and that is even becoming more so now with social media platforms, with blogs.”
“On the whole, it is important to note that a good retirement plan starts the very day you are employed knowing that whatever has a beginning has an end. 35 or 60 mandatory years of service are certainly not eternity.
It must also be stressed here that it is not too late to plan even where you have just few years to retire from service.
The most important thing is that you have a plan either of money saved or of the job you intend to carry after on retirement. Put every other factor in place such as your age, strength and the mental capacity to carry on.”
The guest speaker and Chairman of Elumelu Foundation, Tony Elumelu said retirement should not be synonymous with being tired or giving up as it should be a stepping stone.
He advised working journalists to pursue their purposes with passion, stressing the need to increase capacity in readiness for the next phase
“Set your milestones and work towards accomplishing the milestone,” he told the reporters.
Tony Ailemen, Abuja
